Electronic mail or email and text messaging is ubiquitous, used as a convenient and inexpensive medium for rapid business as well as personal communication. While it is extremely useful, quick, and easy to use, however, email text communication has some significant shortcomings, particularly with respect to interpersonal communications. Even among people who have some level of affinity, email and texting interaction can tend to be impersonal and terse. Various factors such as habit and attitude with respect to the ongoing proliferation of unsolicited email and text messages tends to make it acceptable to ignore or defer response to email or text messages, even when they might include a more personal inquiry or request. When the perception of the recipient has particular significance to the sender, crafting a request or a more formal response to an email takes time, focus, and effort. One word email responses can be wrongly perceived, such as appearing to be unfriendly, socially awkward, or terse, and can possibly be misdirected or lost or include typographical errors. Because it can take time to craft an appropriate and complete response, there are many instances wherein a query goes unanswered.
It can also be appreciated that there are many situations in which a message recipient has limited time or mobility for responding to a question in a text message. Repair personnel, for example, may be wearing protective gloves or other equipment that makes it difficult to interact with a small keypad or screen-based touch interface. People who must accomplish a number of tasks at one time may not be able to expend more than a few seconds on responding to a text message when responsible for other duties.
One area of particular difficulty relates to eliciting a quick response to transmitted text having a question or request. While a “Yes/No” response may be sufficient to a question in many cases, there can be instances where less certainty is possible or where a conditional response (such as “Not likely”, “Don't know yet”) is all that the responding recipient can provide. There is currently no quick response mechanism for responding to an inquiry that allows the recipient to answer quickly without sending a response email or other text message and without the requirement for formulating the text of a reply. In addition, there can be situations wherein the response of a recipient can only be brief, such as when the recipient can answer a quick inquiry while involved in other business, but is unable to give full attention to an email or other text message.